


The Stories We Tell

by wonderble



Category: Person Of Interest - Fandom
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderble/pseuds/wonderble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stories we tell, the stories we are told, tell us who we are, tell us where to go … (Or five character studies told through the lens of children's books). Posted so far: Lionel Fusco, Joss Carter</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Faithful - Lionel's Story

**Author's Note:**

> Horton has always been Lionel’s favorite character …
> 
> Originally posted on November 24, 2012. Canon compliant up until that date!

Horton has always been your favorite.

Of course, people take one look at you and think it's 'cause of those easy words.

But that's not true.

Well, not totally.

Your Ma had always been stubborn about the whole reading thing. Not that the habit actually took, but hell, it wasn't her fault. She tried at least and her "once-upon-a-times" are a helluva lot better than the "the ends" you got from your Da.

Stories were the thing that could fuckin' abracadabra away the walls of that small, one room apartment, the thing that could peel away the ceilings that dripped with when it rained, drooped heavily with the heat, and smelled, always smelled, of stewed cabbage.

Once upon a time and poof!

Now there were red fish and yellow fish and occasionally blue (and not only the ordinary cheap fish that graced the table on Fridays.) The wild rumpus of wilder things drowned out the terrible roars and the thunderous crashes of the wild Hartmans upstairs.(And reminded you, yes, a warm dinner would be waiting afterwards, no matter what, no matter how long Ma had to scrub the floors. There was always a warm dinner waiting.)  
   
And no matter what, by God, you had books.

Even if Ma had to borrow them all from the library -- that is, on the days when her shift actually ended before the doors closed.  (Even now, libraries meant stories that didn't quite belong to you, could never belong to you, belong to brains that were not yours ... a borrowed world that sometimes met but never truly intersected your own.)

Years after the apartment was long gone, the sight of cracked spines, the smell of mildewed paper, and the shadow of stained pages would bring you back to the yellow light of that kitchen, the smooth flow of Ma's voice.  
   
People never expected that high dollar vocabulary that would spill out of her mouth. It made you so proud. What was it called it? Something about morons? Anyway, the word that meant both the thing and the something opposite of what people expected. (Hey, you figure _your_ way with words were, like your nose and crinkled hair, the only thing Da bothered to leave you.)

Yet, whatever that word was, it was your mother described perfectly  -- most people never expected the knowledge she held in her voice ... especially when compared to the roughness of her hands and the thick veined bulge of her muscles. Bleach and detergent weren't kind to her skin. The cracks in her fingers caught and whispered rough against the paper each time she turned a page.  
  
But each one of those jagged edges spelled out its own spidery script, wrote with each reddened digit -- "be better than this, Lionel. Be better than just chasin' dirt around for rich people."  
  
That was the real story Ma was tryin' to read to you. You know it.  
  
Pity you didn't listen, not until it was beyond the "the end."  
  
Still, every night she had tried with that reckless cat in that stupid hat. The dog that always would go.  
  
And oh Jesus, how you hated that one bird ... you know? The one who always went looking for his mother. Didn't that idiot know better, to go away from his ma? Didn't that dumbass know to not go asking all the strangers for help?  
  
Your Ma would let you cling tight to her during that book, even as she made the giant SNORT! that signaled rescue for that idiot.  
  
So okay, honestly, that ending was the best, the part of getting back to where he belonged. Even stupid critters knew that much.  
  
Still, it was Horton you love the most. Him and those silly ears, just shy of being called Dumbo.  
  
No one ever called Horton smart.  
  
No one ever called you smart.  
  
But hell, didn't you both give a hundred percent?  Every time. No matter what came -- the hunters with their crappy guns, the Vlad Vladikoff Vultures (and damnit, who knew there were so many of those vultures out there?), and the other animals with their mockery and laughter -- Horton helped people through it all.  
  
"Remember, Lionel," Ma had said as she closed the Horton book (God, the woman had the patience of forty two saints -- she must have read it a thousand times!). "A person's a person, no matter how small."  
  
Of course you said yes.  
  
Of course you promise to remember.  
  
One hundred percent.  
  
\-------------------------------  
  
It's different, readin' to your kid. You notice things on the other side of the story, like how you should make your voice sound when that cat bursts in like he owns the place, when thing one and thing two pop out like some insane jack in the box.  
  
You think about things like  "for crying out loud, not that green eggs and ham again! We just read it last night!"  
  
Or "Happily ever afters, that's not how it works!"  
  
But you don't let the words escape your mouth, you clamp down tight so the syllables don't escape. You read to your kid because its what parents _do_ , yeah?  
  
You turn the pages. Your mouth moves and the story spills out. And in those moments, when your son stares at you as you build a world for him -- cripes, that's why Ma did it, right?  
  
But you cannot read every night, no.  You can't do it every night.  Not even most nights. But on the nights you can, you do.  
  
And these books, well, they actually _belong_ to your son. Though, really, best not to think about where that money has come from.  
  
Trying to clean the world of its scum (you think of your ma and her bleached, cracked hands -- God, you really didn't get all too far from that apple tree, no?) pays a little better than cleanin' bathrooms.  
  
However, it means you still have to deal with rich people shit.  
  
And sometimes, it gets all over ya.  
  
You wonder, briefly, if you ever could tell your own story to your son. If your late nights and your black bagged eyes spell out an alphabet for him, just like your Ma's hands did for you.  
  
You wonder about the stories you have chosen. The one where Horton doesn't hear nobody anymore. The one where the eggs that are laid don't hatch out into nothin' good. (Who knew the world had so many vultures? Every day, peckin' and snatching at that 100 percent.)  
  
You wonder, honestly, if the words you picked are something besides "bad cop" or "HR".  
  
Or "The End."  
  
But you tell your son the stories with happily afters. And it's enough, when the words that come out of his mouth are "Daddy" and "I love you" and "Read it again!"  
  
(Though not the one about that damn bird looking for his mother! Hell no! Too close to home and absent wife-mothers and all. His kid ain't lost. Hell. No.)  
  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Before you know it,  you don't read no more to your kid.  
  
 Don't have to -- he's soundin' out words on his own and he's wanting books that have chapters in them.  
  
You think about your own chapters. You don't get any handsomer, that's for sure. Every part of you seems mismatched worser than elephant birds or such shit like that.  
  
 But damn, there it is, when you're helping your kid box up those kiddie books for Goodwill -- that damn book happens to fall over and open to that damn page with that damn cage and that damn elephant staring sadly from within.

**"I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one-hundred percent!"**

And where has that story gotten you and him? Cages to rot in and the mess of eggs you haven't laid.  
  
And oh God, what will hatch from under YOUR ass -- it ain't going to nothing pleasant. What's coming will bust out like sin, crackin' and squallin' up hell.  
  
It will belong to you, to little big eared Lionel, this thing smelling like birdshit and coming home to roost and calling you mother.  
  
And you can only sit an wait, because you have given your word (who knew it was to vultures?)  
  
And still, STILL you keep that faith (broken as it is), fucked up one hundred percent.  
  
\-------------------------------------  
  
Then things erupt instead of hatching, oh do they ever, in both literal flame and figurative fire.  
  
Then you _really_ don't have no time for your son, even if he can read his own stories.  
  
Then the vultures **really** come to pick your bones clean and damn, do they drive those curved beaks deep.

And it's _still_ not the end.  
  
New chapter. New people. Same story, you think ... you're gonna be taken out, used, wrung out to the last word (your fuckin' life like library book, belonging to no one, forever on loan.)  
  
But yet ...  
  
Somehow, some way, in some freaking accident that opened your story to an old bookmark ... you're back to the page you should've been on, all along.  
  
" _Shh, Lionel listen ... Horton heard a very faint yelp..."_  
  
And yes, you have to strain to listen, because that pain-in-the-ass bastard speaks so softly (though he's not really _asking_ for help, and he's more like that damn cat, busting in and making mayhem).  
  
And yes, there is that little dust speck of a guy, with glasses and a limp and a fragility so evident that it seems any strong wind could blow him away. (If there is anybody lookin' for a warm nest and his mama, you guess it's him. Looking for help from strangers, lookin' to help strangers, Jesus, what an idiot!) 

But still, it makes you think, in words that fit a high dollar vocabulary.

It makes you think about being that kind of moron, that kind that means both the thing and the something opposite from what people would expect.

 And you think, you hear, you _remember_...

Damn the vultures, damn the hunters, damn the mockers of the world. You just gotta listen, gotta keep your promises, gotta know ...

A person is a person, no matter how small.

-End


	2. Round Trip -- Joss's Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Joss hears the story, she can’t help but love it … but yet, she still feels betrayed by the trick at the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Round Trip by Ann Jonas.](http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780688099862)
> 
> Originally posted November 24, 2012 on Tumblr. Canon compliant until that date.

____________________________________

The first time you read the book, you can't help but love it ... but yet, you still feel betrayed by the trick at the end.

You came stumbling into the world held up by parents that had as firm a grip on the spine of a book as they had on your hands. Before you were even three, you knew how the words should always flow, right to left, up to down. It was an inviolate truth -- follow it, and the words would give you meaning.

(You remembered how, at first, you had thought the muscles in Daddy's arms must have come from lifting all the leather bound ones he had on the shelf.

"Oh, I earned all my muscles ... every one," he had said as he toted another book up, "but you're right, my most important I earned with stories. Don't you ever forget that, baby girl, fill your mind up with those ...")

It was not until later you knew that he had gained those arm muscles in the same way you would gain yours -- once a upon a time, in a land far, far away.

Daddy had loved stories, but he had never told any from those times.

"A man needs other stories," he had said, on the one time she had asked "especially when the stories he has lived aren't all that pleasant. I know which ones I want to tell. And they aren't ones I left back there. Find the stories you wanna live, Jossie. And keep lookin' till you find the right ones."

He had bought this particular book for you for your fifth birthday.

You had thought, however, that you were waaaaaaaaaaaaay too old for picture books by then. You even said so in the most grown up huff ever.

"Oh Jossie-Flossie, pudding and pie!" Daddy had said as he had tumbled you over into his lap.  You can't help but laugh helplessly as you push at his tickly fingers. "I'm not too big for this book, so why should you be?" 

There was no answer for that, so you had settled down in his wide lap (wide enough to hold a whole world and beyond) and suffered to be read to, even then.

_Round Trip_ by Ann Jonas.

Even on the first reading, you had noticed two things. There are no colors except stark black and white. Still, that's enough to sharply define what should be and what isn't.

You had also seen that there were upside down words, spilling across the page.

You had tried to ignore it, sense of unease growing. Even early on, you were good at sniffing out tricks, and Daddy, well, he loved playing them.

"Just wait, Jossie, you'll see why there's words upside down. Just wait."

And wouldn't you know, indeed there was  trick. For when he reached the end, didn't he stop and stare at you instead of saying happily ever after? And then his warm brown eyes had squinted up. His lips had become firmly pinched together, the way they always were when he was holding in a laugh.

"What d'ya think we should do now, baby girl? We've reached the end of the book."

He was waiting. And watching. Seeing what you would do with a story half finished, seeing how you handled this departure from the known.

And as he waited, you could feel the feeling growing in your tummy, half exasperation and half anticipation. You wiggle uncomfortably, as you put your hands on your hip, grouching at him like Momma did.

"Well, well Flossie Jossie, what's with that stink eye look?"

To this day, while you don't know exactly _why_ you threw the tantrum, you do know it was loud and it was vibrant and it had all the passion of a five year feelin' her age and every inch more. You KNOW how a story should go! You KNOW he was laughing at you! You had stomped your feet in protest, even as he let loose his great bear laugh, the one the tickled you down to your mary janes.

  
"Jossie Flossie, there is no ONE way that the world _should_ be. Same with stories," he had said.  
  
Still! Still! You insisted, with all the force and logic a five year old could muster. No! No! No! There were rules. Things should be read left to right, up to down. If the world lost that, if the pages lost its meaning ...  
  
(Now, looking back, you can appreciate just how silly and pointless all that yelling had been.  
  
 Yet, secretly, you still feel like you can still fit in the skin of that five year old self, arguing about the _rightness_ of the world ... no matter how silly. No matter how pointless.)  
  
It takes you a full ten minutes to calm down. Your daddy had laughed all the while. He had laughed so hard that Momma had come a-stomping from the kitchen where she had been icing that cake and sticking it with five candles.  
  
As she recalled it, she just had to see what in the _world_ had gotten her two favorite people so riled, and "And there you were, Jossie, mad at the world for not conforming to your wishes. And here I was, worried about that pack of rascals about to raid us of cake and ice cream!"  
  
Daddy had managed (as he always did) to calm you, but you could still feel the chuckles through his belly as he showed you the secret behind that black and white story.  
  
"See, Jossie? Just because you reach the last page doesn't mean that the story has to end. The railroad tracks become telephone poles. The cacti becomes fireworks in the sky. Things can change, black to white, white to black ... you just have to keep an open mind."  
  
Afterward, even more secretly, you had to admit, there was something wondrous in how the pictures still made sense, even all topsy turvy.  
  
You take that with you, even after that cake is eaten, the candles are blown out, and the presents are opened -- the feeling of your father's warm laughter and the knowledge that sometimes, even the most black and white pictures could have other stories to tell.  
  
\---  
  
Taylor loves _Round Trip._ From the moment he could stand high enough, he is always pulling it off the shelf for you to read.  
  
 But he is used to his world turning upside down by then, is used to seeing  pictures of faces that didn't exist except in stories ... the ones who couldn't come back (but are still important, oh god, so important so you tell their stories again and again).  
  
So the surprise hadn't come as much as one -- he accepts that there are more than one way to tell a story just as there is more than one way to make a family ... and that it's more than what's sharply defined as there and what's defined as gone forever.  
  
Taylor, your smart one, your sweet one, the one who tumbled your world and made it right. Taylor, who made you use those muscles you built up (both in your hands and in your arms and in your head ... and the one where your mom and dad had been strongest of all -- the one that beat with the truth of you) more than anything ever could.  
  
He knows, without you telling him, how important stories are.  
  
Even at the age of three, he knows to be careful with the pages of this particular one. He knows to hold it with both hands whenever he takes it from the shelf.  
  
 Taylor, careful Taylor, your focal point in a world gone topsy turvey. And as he listens raptly to book once more (and again, Mommy and again and again) you reflect that in this ever spinning world, you can still hold your ground.  
  
\--  
  
Taylor doesn't need someone to read to him anymore; even if he did, your mom would do so. You cannot, no matter how much he wishes you to be there.  
  
This is the story you tell yourself even as the sand crunches underneath your feet and the dry wind murmurs in a susurrus that makes you feel more hot and desolate than you ever thought possible.  
  
There are no time for books here, so its up to you wheedle out stories, one by one from men who stare at you with hard black and white eyes.  
  
You think of your father -- of Daddy and the green jungles of his war. It is brown, mostly, where you are. You think you begin to really understand, now, the importance of stories, even as you press for the ones from the man captured in front of you.  
  
You tell the story about your own baby boy, your own world, and the happy ending you believed so much in (because you still do, so much, even now, Jossie Flossie). Because stories had to have rules, had to be read from left to right, and the world should have rules as well-- this you promise and more.  
  
But in the end, there is no happy ending to be found in between the desert and the sky, and no matter how you invert it again and again, you can't take back the story, can't retell it for the better.

 ---  
You are your father's daughter, after all.

It's Dad's legacy, you think, that you can still believe in happy endings when you get back to a world that is grey and the buildings scrape the sky. You trade your camo for the blues and walk the city with a million stories ... and you take no time in making all of them your own.  
  
Dad had taken his anger at his war and turned it into a lifetime of collecting books and collecting the laughter of his family.  
  
You turn it into making sure Taylor gets to school on time and that the city is safe for him wherever he goes.  
   
God willing, it WILL be one with a happy ending!  
  
And then one night, shots ring out. You are alone, like everyone had said you would be. There aren't any knights coming for this princess. There are no king nor his horsemen to put you back again. No words or worlds to make this go away.  
  
You've chosen the wrong story.  
  
You've come to the last page.  
  
 But is it the end?  
  
You see a man who looks bat at you with his ever calm eyes ... even as his blood leaks through the white of his once pristine suit. His little friend is there too.  
  
Black to White. White to black.  
  
 _"Again, mommy, again!"_  
  
You can't help but love it, even as you're betrayed by the trick at the end.  
  
For your world is turning over.  
  
And with it, a chance to retell your story anew.  
  
\- End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties choosing Joss’s book; Round Trip was written in 1983 and I’m still not quite certain of her timeline. However, perhaps her father has a way of pulling stories to him, especially those that need to be told.
> 
> Stories referenced:
> 
> Round Trip by Ann Jonas
> 
> I remembered being just as shocked as Joss when I first heard it and the surprise was revealed at the end. I am also probably going to be out of continuity once the season continues airing, but for now, hehe, here’s a peek at some headcanon.
> 
> John is next.
> 
> Special thanks go to rose griffes, lionsassy, amayakumiko, conch22, and pkmndaisuke who supported the original chapter when it was posted on tumblr. Thanks. :) It made my day.

**Author's Note:**

> Books referenced:
> 
> Horton Hears a Who - Dr. Seuss  
> Horton Hatches an Egg - Dr. Seuss  
> The Cat in the Hat - Dr. Seuss  
> One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish - Dr. Seuss  
> Go, Dog, Go - P.D. Eastman  
> Are You My Mother? - P.D. Eastman  
> Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
> 
> Notes: Person of Interest is a very literary show. It uses a lot of classics (of both the literary, science fiction, and the occasional biographical and penal law kind) to a great effect.
> 
> But, as a friend of mine pointed out, it is usually the stories we’re told as children that have the most impact on us, whether we acknowledge it or not.
> 
> Special Thanks go to: no-surrender-no-retreat, pickawinnerharold, mamahub, lionsassy, amayakumiko, and pkmndaisuki for replying this story the first time it was posted on tumblr. You gave me the incentive to keep going. :)


End file.
